Mount Pearl churches combine efforts to share the loaf
By Mark Squibb | Vol 7 No. 25 (Dec. 19, 2019)
A collection of business owners and church members in Mount Pearl have been working together over the last several weeks to provide a free community supper weekly to their fellow citizens who may be in need.
Each Wednesday for the last seven weeks, a community chef cooks up a meal, which volunteers from that week’s host church help prepare and serve to upwards of 150 people from the community.
The City of Mount Pearl donates the use of Park Place for the suppers.
“It’s really a huge, huge community project,” explained Scott Hillier of Coffee Maters, a member of the community supper committee and one of the volunteer chefs. “The host church gets the volunteers to come in and help serve the meal and help clean up.”
Hillier, who helped organize the effort, said the current arrangement allows everybody to get involved, without just one group having to bear a massive burden.
“I knew that the churches wanted to do something like this, and I knew that for any one church to take this on would be huge, because you need so many volunteers,” said Hillier. “Only one church has to host one night during this seven-week period. So, even if we move forward in doing it once a week, you’re only asking each church to do it once every seven weeks.”
He said that this not only prevents volunteers from getting burnt out, but also prevents people from closely associating the supper with any one domination.
“It’s not ran by a church; it’s ran by a group of churches in the city,” said Hillier. “And all are welcome.”
Hillier said that it’s a diverse crowd that come out for the suppers, including families, the working poor, youth, and seniors. Some come out just to be able eat a meal in the company of others.
“I’ve always believed in giving back. And I know that as a single dad and coming from a single-parent family, I know that some people struggle really, really bad,” he said.
The first supper was held on Sept. 11, and the last one on Dec. 18, with the committee hoping to decide in January if the suppers will continue into the new year.
